The Package
The Package is one of the seven short films comprising the anime adaptation of the Halo universe, Halo Legends Halo.Bungie.Org - Halo Legends: Polite Questions Answered HereIGN.com - SDCC 09: Halo Legends In-Depth. A CGI-film, The Package is a two-part episode that takes place during an adventure as the Master Chief and an elite squad of SPARTAN-II super-soldiers perform a top secret mission to retrieve a highly valuable UNSC asset on a Covenant Assault Carrier. Summary Part One Part one of The Package was released on the 5th of December, and details the initial deployment and infiltration of the mission by the Spartan team. Starting off aboard an unknown ONI stealth ship, the Spartans, consisting of John-117, Frederic-104, Kelly-087, Arthur-079 and Solomon-069 being briefed by an intelligence officer - a Covenant fleet is momentarily trapped in the system, and is carrying an important "package," which the Spartans must retrieve. The stealth craft de-cloaks and deploys the Spartans in Booster Frames. As they make their way past through the array of plasma weaponry and attach a scanning device to one of the Covenant ships to search for the "package's" frequency. Solomon detects the package on one of the ships. But as soon as he leaves the hanger, he discovers an Antimatter Charge, which destroys the ship and kills him. Soon enough, the Spartans detects the same beacon frequency coming from all the ships around them. This confirms that the Covenant knows what they're after. John could deduce that their target is actually in the Assault Carrier flagship. Arthur is killed after being crushed trying to cover Kelly during the battle. The film ends with the three surviving Spartans aboard the fleet's flagship, momentarily protected by a Bubble Shield, and attacking the hangar-full of Covenant warriors. Part Two Making their way through thick Brute and Grunt defences, the Spartans are ambushed by a team of Elites. Fred parries a swipe from an energy sword with his Spartan Laser, and kills his attacker with a dagger, distracting John's own attacker, holding the Elites off long enough for John and Kelly to go on. The Shipmaster gives the order to detach part of the hull, hoping to leave the Spartans stranded in space - Kelly manages to propel John back into the ship, but is left in the vacuum. John manages to recover the "package" - revealed to be Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, founder of the SPARTAN-II Program, in cryo-hibernation. He releases her and then tries making their escape but their path is blocked by the Major Elite, who challenges him to a sword duel, giving him his other Energy Sword. Despite the fact that John-117 is disarmed in the duel, he is saved when the Shipmaster decides to detach the entire lower hull section and jump to slipspace now that the magnetic interference has cleared, leaving the Spartans and much of their fellow Covenant stranded. The Major Elite rages as he returns to the ship, but can do nothing as John and Halsey are sealed off from him. He leaves the two humans with the words, "A thousand hells awaits you!" Now free of immediate Covenant danger, the two use a Covenant escape pod, and are promptly pursued by Seraph fighters - and are saved as Fred and Kelly use one of the Seraphs to cover them until they are recovered by the Stealth Ship they were deployed from and leave the system. Once they are aboard, John swears that he'll never let another comrade die again.Halo Legends, The Package Appearances Characters *John-117 *Frederic-104 *Kelly-087Official Xbox Magazine, Holiday 2009, page 94 *Solomon-069 *Arthur-079 *Catherine Elizabeth Halsey *Unnamed ONI Commander *Unnamed Elite Major *Unnamed Fleet Master Organizations *Covenant Empire **Covenant Navy *United Nations Space Command **UNSC Navy ***UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command ****SPARTAN-II Program ***Office of Naval Intelligence Species *Human *Sangheili *Unggoy *Kig-Yar *Jiralhanae Vehicles *Assault Carrier *OF-92/EVA Booster Frame *CCS-class Battlecruiser *''Seraph''-class Starfighter *Covenant Escape Pod *Unnamed Stealth Spacecraft Equipment *Bubble Shield Weapons *M9 High-Explosive Dual-Purpose Grenade *M7/Caseless Submachine Gun *M90A Close Assault Weapon System *MA5B Individual Combat Weapon System *Type-1 Energy Weapon/Sword *Type-25 Directed Energy Pistol *Type-25 Grenade Launcher *Type-51 Carbine *Weapon/Anti-Vehicle Model 6 Grindell/Galileian Nonlinear Rifle *Type-25 Carbine *Plasma Cannon *Close Quarters Combat Weapon System *Antimatter Charge Trivia * The art gallery also revealed an Elite wearing the Assault Harness armor. However, it is incorrectly referred to as the Flight Harness, another armor permutation of the Elites. * The equipment used in part one of The Package seems more advanced than the UNSC was previously thought to use. Rather than relying on photoreactive panels for optical camouflage, the Stealth ship actually uses a Covenant-style active camouflage system. Likewise, the Booster Frames seem to be at least partially protected by energy shields. It may be that both of these technologies were reverse-engineered from Covenant technology. * In Solomon's HUD it states that he is holding a Spartan Laser, and SMG, even though he is holding an Assault Rifle. * The Package is the first occurrence in the Halo franchise to depict Spartans previously introduced in the franchise's storyline without helmets on. * The Covenant species in the film are depicted to have green blood while none of them actually do. * Two of Dr. Halsey's statements are references to similar statements made in the first two Halo games. She tells John-117 that she slept well "No thanks to their driving," which is echoed in Halo: Combat Evolved when he tells Cortana he slept well no thanks to her driving. She also tells John, "Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it," which Cortana would eventually tell him again in Halo 2. It is likely that Cortana got the quote from Dr. Halsey as Cortana's mind is basically a copy of Dr. Halsey's. * Despite the fact that Frederic-104 remained behind to fight two Elites, the Shipmaster's console continued to display 3 hostiles speeding down the corridor, though it only should have shown two - John-117 and Kelly-084. This error can be seen on two occasions. * The armor sported by the Spartans resembles the Mark VI instead of the Mark IV; however, this is purely a stylistic choice, the armor seen is Mark IV. In this episode, Kelly-087 wears the MJOLNIR EVA variant, making this the first Halo film to feature this armor. Gallery Image:SpartansLegends.jpg|Four of the Spartan-IIs being briefed on the mission. (From left to right: Fredric-104, Arthur-079, Solomon-069 and Kelly-087.) File:CCS Legends.jpg|A CCS-Class Battlecruiser firing its plasma weaponry. File:117 Legends.jpg|John-117 flying his Booster Frame. File:John Booster.jpg|John-117 entering the launch bay of the CCS-Class Battlecruiser. Sources Package, The